


the other edge of greatness

by tomato_greens



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:21:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26404900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomato_greens/pseuds/tomato_greens
Summary: There were, predictably, victory songs: Swift Wind would have insisted on writing a jazz number anyway, and then Sea Hawk and Scorpia got in on the gig, andthenit turned out each kingdom had their own interminable traditional epics, each longer and more annoying than the last.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra), Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	the other edge of greatness

**Author's Note:**

> don’t look at me about this unconscionably sentimental plotless claptrap that I started yesterday during a g.d. Zoom meeting and finished at 2:30 AM

There were, predictably, victory songs: Swift Wind would have insisted on writing a jazz number anyway, and then Sea Hawk and Scorpia got in on the gig, and _then_ it turned out each kingdom had their own interminable traditional epics, each longer and more annoying than the last. 

“Seriously, you do this every time you win a war?” Catra asked Glimmer, who was clandestinely wiping a tear away, because everyone outside the Fright Zone cried at any opportunity — Catra included, apparently, just to dig the insult a little further into the injury. Ugh. 

“We’ve never won a war in my lifetime,” Glimmer said, voice wobbling for a second before she cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. “But the histories of Bright Moon suggest victory is always accompanied by a celebratory recitation of — um —”

“The Epic of Meshagilg, Ancient Moon Warrier,” Bow supplied helpfully, popping up to the high table from the dance floor and kissing Glimmer on the cheek as he reached over her shoulder to grab a tiny dumpling from her plate. “Hi, Catra!” 

“Suggest?” Catra asked, raising her eyebrows. Bow smelled faintly of sweat, though the center of the ballroom was emptying quickly now that the newly-appointed Bright Moon Bard, ensconced among huge pink flowers at the head of the hall, had abandoned their array of electrinstruments and was instead plucking uproariously at a lute. Given that the entirety of Bright Moon was covered in tapestry after velvet cushion after thick carpet, it was a miracle that the sound traveled far enough for Catra to be bored by it. 

Bow shrugged, sucking a little orange clump of sweet potato off his thumb. “Lance and George say we can’t know for sure. They’ve reconstructed what they could, but it’s been so long since Bright Moon was able to celebrate anything — ow, Glimmer! — that we just aren’t sure what the original notation meant.” 

“You don’t even know what this song sounded like and you’re still making us listen to it?” Out of the corner of her eye, Catra saw a familiar purple menace hand one of the Bard’s synthboards over to Emily; was Catra now, if by nothing else then by association with a whole set of goody-two-shoes, morally obligated to do something about it? 

“It’s tradition!” Glimmer insisted. “Or, if it wasn’t, it’s tradition now. A new tradition! Kind of! Don’t look at me like that. It’s important.” 

“Uh huh,” said Catra, but she could feel what Glimmer meant, underneath, if she didn’t think about it too hard — how this mattered; how Glimmer shoving another dumpling into Bow’s mouth before he could tease her mattered; how it mattered that Frosta, newly fourteen and gawky with it, had handed Micah a slice of pink cake; how it mattered that Mermista was laughing hard enough to wipe tears from her eyes ( _seriously_ , the _crying_ ) while Perfuma imitated Rock Dumb Greg from her drum circle; how it mattered that the gentle lute playing an ancient song, underneath, linked through eternity this moment to all other Bright Moons past. “Where’d you dig up someone to play this fake song, anyway?”

“You mean you don’t recognize them?” Glimmer asked, with her usual bell of a laugh.

“Oh — no. No, no no. Really?” 

“They did a lot of good in the final battle,” Glimmer pointed out gently. “And an audience is an audience. And, after all, I pay well.” 

“So I hear, Sparkles,” Catra said, stealing Glimmer’s last tiny dumpling as she leapt away from the high table, through a window, and into the garden, where Entrapta and Emily were elbow-deep into the pilfered synthboard. Well, Catra thought, it would probably end up better than it had started, anyway, and knocked on Emily’s metal carapace.

“That’s a bit rude, don’t you think?” Entrapta said, without looking up.

“Dumpling for your thoughts?” 

“Oooh, one of the little ones?” 

“Would I bring you anything less?”

Entrapta squinted up at Catra. The lab on Beast Island — and working again with Hordak, who must be around here somewhere, though Catra was just as glad not to have to see him — were treating her well; she’d gained a little weight, and her hair was glossy. “You wouldn’t,” Entrapta said, then, as if deciding something, and held out her hand. “What kind?” 

“Truly no idea,” Catra admitted, dropping the little coin of dough into Entrapta’s waiting palm.

“A surprise!”

“Have you seen Adora around?” Catra asked Emily while Entrapta was rapturously chewing. Honestly, Entrapta did almost anything she cared to do rapturously, which Catra envied when she let herself think about it for more than a few seconds. Not tonight, she thought, and pushed the envy back into the pit she kept it chained up in. 

Emily seemed to think about it. “Cabbage,” said Entrapta.

“Adora’s...in the cabbage?” Catra swiveled a glance back around the garden, but Adora didn’t appear, and for that matter, neither did any cabbage. 

“No, the dumpling, hello,” Entrapta said. “And maybe carrot.” 

“And — Adora?” 

Entrapta waved her hand in about six directions, which wasn’t very helpful, and then added, “Look high,” which was. “Bring me more dumplings if you find any!” she called as Catra scaled the nearest castle wall for the sheer physical satisfaction of it — muscles moving in concerted effort, the problem of efficient clawgrips to solve, and no one to battle at the end of the climb. 

It’s not that Catra didn’t enjoy a fight; she did, obviously; she took vicious pleasure in winning, and always had. The deepest core of her had never changed much. If the chip hadn’t rewritten her entirely, a kiss was hardly enough to do so. 

But —“Hey, Adora,” she said, as she vaulted herself onto a parapet and saw Adora’s familiar slump against it. 

“Catra?” Adora said, sleepily, unfolding herself from her pretzeled-up position against the wall of the battlement, then wrenching awake as she clutched at her neck, bare under her red dress. Did she own any other dresses, actually? “Oh, oh, sitting like this was a mistake. Don’t look at me like that! I just needed a second — I was tired — anyway, I didn’t mean to fall asleep, I obviously didn’t think I’d be sitting here for this long!” 

“She-Ra, heal thyself,” Catra said, snickering, but she climbed down next to Adora anyway, sitting on the battlement’s stone floor and sticking her finger directly into the throbbing knot that always formed in Adora’s left shoulder whenever she wasn’t consciously relaxing it. 

“Ow, Catra!”

“You’re too young for back problems this bad, you know that?”

“I don’t feel young,” Adora admitted, putting her left wrist in Catra’s hand. “Can you pull?”

“Fine, fine,” Catra said, because she didn’t feel young either, when you got down to it. “Better?”

“A little,” Adora said, and then raised her arm expectantly, her wrist still soft in Catra’s grip. 

“Fine!” Catra said, and tucked herself into Adora’s side, because that was the thing about Adora; she tried. It was basically her defining feature. And now — here, on the long slow side of peace — she was trying, finally, to make room for Catra.

“Is that boring guy from the Kingdom of Snows still playing his ice flute?” 

“Worse — Glimmer hired Double Trouble to pretend they know how to play this — oh, honestly, you probably don’t even want to know.”

“Is it better than the ice flute?”

“Definitely not.”

Adora shuddered slightly, and slumped back into Catra, warm against her side. 

The other thing about Adora was that she, too, wanted to win, more than anything; more than breathing, sometimes, because her definition of winning wasn’t the same as Catra’s, for whom breathing was in fact the goal. And Catra would never stop missing, in some way, the slick bloody grin of triumph she’d felt with a lever in her hand — with Hordak crumpled at her feet. 

But here they were, right? Both breathing, for a start, which was better than Catra had expected given the first twenty years of knowing Adora. 

“You all right?” Adora asked, obviously sleepy again already, her head tilting treacherously towards Catra’s shoulder.

“You know,” Catra said, looking out at the Moonstone and the silver-limned Whispering Woods, one hand on Adora’s knee, “for now, anyway, I think I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> just looked up where “Physician, heal thyself” comes from and realized I accidentally implied that the Bible exists in _She-Ra_ , but you know what? fine, whatever, Horde Prime wrote it


End file.
